322
COMMUNICATIONS AND THE MEDIA
Telecommunications Services
Hong Kong continues to enjoy a wide range of efficient telecommunications services at fair and reasonable prices.
The territory has one of the highest telephone densities in Southeast Asia. At the year's end, there were an estimated 3.8 million telephones served by three million exchange lines, representing a density of 65 telephones for every 100 people.
Basic public telecommunications services are provided under franchise. Under the Telephone Ordinance, the Hong Kong Telephone Company Limited has the exclusive right until June 30, 1995 to provide a public voice telephone service by wire within Hong Kong. Hong Kong Telecom International Limited has been granted an exclusive licence until September 30, 2006, to provide a range of public international telecommunications services, including telephone, telex and telegram services and leased circuits for data and facsimile traffic.
Following a decision to further liberalise the telecommunications industry, the government announced in November 1993 its intention to license three new fixed telecommunications networks to provide competition to the Hong Kong Telephone Company Limited in data and facsimile services initially, and in voice telephony beyond June 1995.
A new price-capping scheme for the Hong Kong Telephone Company Limited was implemented in August 1993. By limiting overall price increases to four per cent below the prevailing rate of inflation, the new scheme ensures that local telephone charges will decrease significantly in real terms, while providing a reasonable degree of incentive for continued investment and improved efficiency.
The local public switched telephone network became fully digitalised during the year and Hong Kong now has one of the most advanced networks in the world. Through the fully digital network, customers in the territory enjoy a wider range of high quality telecommunications services.
The popularity of facsimile communications continued to grow at the expense of telex traffic, which dropped by 8.9 per cent to 39 million minutes in 1993. In contrast, the number of facsimile lines reached 228 000 by the end of the year, with Hong Kong having more fax machines per head of population than anywhere else apart from Japan. A wide range of advanced data communication facilities is also provided by a public packet-switched data network called Datapak, which is operated by the Hong Kong Telephone Company Limited.
Hong Kong is connected to the rest of the world by overland and submarine cables, satellites and terrestrial radio links. The more important cables include the Hong Kong-Guangdong optical fibre cable, the Hong Kong-Shenzhen optical fibre cable, the Singapore-Hong Kong-Taiwan submarine cable, the Hong Kong-Luzon submarine cable, the Hong Kong-Japan-Korea optical fibre submarine cable, the Hong Kong-Taiwan 2 optical fibre submarine cable and the Asia Pacific Cable (APC). Hong Kong Telecom International Limited operates a satellite earth station at Stanley with six Standard-A, two Standard-B and one Standard-G antennas communicating with international satellites over the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Two Inmarsat satellite antennas are being constructed and will be ready for service in 1994.
The only remaining external terrestrial radio links are with China, Macau and Laos. In 1993, international telephone traffic grew by 24 per cent to 2 522 million minutes. More than 220 overseas countries and territories, and more than 1 080 cities in China can